


Hallownest's Forgotten Tales: The Follower

by Cloudgazer



Series: Hallownest's Forgotten Tales [1]
Category: Hollow Knight (Video Games)
Genre: False Utopia, Gen, Hive Mind, Rebellion, Speculative Fanfiction, inner conflict, pre-rebellion
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-04
Updated: 2019-10-04
Packaged: 2020-11-10 18:08:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20856029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cloudgazer/pseuds/Cloudgazer
Summary: Part one of the Hallownest's Forgotten Tales Series.Life is good. Life is glorious. Life is radiant.For all of his life, the moth knew nothing other than the Radiance's domain, and that was perfectly fine. After all, it is a perfect utopia. There is no dissatisfaction when everybug knows their place in society. No discontent when everyone is eternally happy. And with their glorious goddess the Radiance watching over them, there is nothing to fear.But on the way to a diplomatic meet with a nearby tribe, a run-in with a mysterious stranger turns his world upside down. His society is not as perfect as he looks. The light they cherished is a force of madness and destruction. And his newfound friend may not be the everyday bug he claims to be. As tensions rise and lines are drawn across the sand, he can only guarantee one thing:He will never be the same again.





	Hallownest's Forgotten Tales: The Follower

**Author's Note:**

> The Follower is set in an "alternate universe" of sorts- major events are changed around, but the end result is the same. It begins in the year 1738 of the Light (the era of The Radiance's reign), a fictional calendar I made for the purposes of this story.
> 
> Being that different species have different lifespans, and that life magic is commonplace, characters may age at vastly different rates. For example, Moths live to an average of 40 years, Endemons Sapien (the dominant species during the peak of Hallownest) live up to 60, and simplistic animals like vengeflies live only one year. Higher beings rarely age at all, and any bug with expertise in Soul can use it to extend their lifespan.
> 
> The Radiance is not omnipresent here, and can only peer into the thoughts of one bug at a time. She can, however, speak to however many at a time she wants to, give instructions telepathically, and can possess small groups of moths at once. Due to this the moths (and her other subjects) have a slightly larger degree of freedom than they may have otherwise.
> 
> Please know that this is my first ever work, so the storyline/plot/characters/setting may not be what you want. Please excuse any mistakes and feel free to give criticism so I can improve in the future.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first light comes into existence.

One moment she didn't exist.

A small light flickered to life in the cavern. A drop of liquid sunshine, rippling and waving, flitting and fluttering. The only light in a desolate world. It glided through the air, as if pushed by an ethereal wind. It's glow was a violently liquid gold, a sharp contrast to the wilted blue tones of rocks and whatever struggling life existed on the ground. It laid gently against the rocks and pulsated, growing larger and larger, until it was approximately the same size of a young grub. With every passing second it refined itself, becoming more detailed, more _alive._

One moment she didn't exist. But now she did.

She opened her eyes. They were large, and glowed with a soft orange light. She could see the color reflecting off of the stones ahead of her. _Orange_. Her mind tasted the word. She didn't know words, but now she did. She could feel it in her mind. It was a bubbly word, but basic, only referring to a type of something larger. She looked around. _Look. Rock. Boulder._ Rocks were small enough for her to carry, but boulders were massive, rounded monoliths, imprinted with strange patterns. _Fossil. _Ah, that's what it is. A remnant of something greater, something old. _Ancient._

The little light found herself yearning for more words, and soon enough she found herself moving. _Legs. Feet. Walk. _The world was big, far bigger than she could see. The cave ceiling was just in view, and covered in _stalactites. _Most of the ground was bumpy and covered in annoying little pebbles, but there was a strip of smooth ground. _Trail_. She wasn't sure who or what made trails, but she took to it readily. It was much better than getting her claws stuck in the rocks.

After some walking down the trail, she found herself at what first appeared to be the end of the world._ Cliff_. The gorge was so steep the boulders stacked on top of each other, almost looking like one small slip could send the entire mountainside down. It was dotted with strange purple _crystals_ \- what they did, she had no idea. A soft wind pushed upwards from the ground, so she opened up her wings to feel the breeze. At the very bottom of the valley it was just another uninteresting rock plain. However, some of the rocks, she noticed, even moved. _Bugs_. She was a bug, wasn't she? Most of them scurried around and didn't seem to notice her presence, but a few looked up towards the light source. They all had strange _mandibles_ and many legs, and a good chunk of them had four or more eyes. They all looked far different from her.

It was at this moment she realized she didn't know _what_ she looked like, so she took a peek at herself. _Moth_. A type of bug. She had two arms and two legs, segmented and covered in shiny pale plating. Her body was fluffy with densely-packed feathers, though she could see signs of a hard carapace underneath them. She had _wings_, even two sets of them, and they too were softly furred, though those were all feathers and nothing else. She tried to look behind herself and above only to find that her neck couldn't go that far. So she simply took her hands and felt what she couldn't see. Her head was furred too, with a little curled _proboscis_ for a mouth, and at the very tip there were three, sharp _horns. _Her back was significantly hard to reach, but from what she could tell it was just feathers all the way down.

_Radiance. _

That word meant her. It was her.

_ I am The Radiance._

And so it begun.


End file.
